What To Do About Syria

[Dino Velvet]

I figured this might happen eventually too.

Al-Qaida leader Zawahri praises Syrian protesters
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...-zawahri-syria

[onmyknees]

[QUOTE=Stavros;1093048]My apologies for the length of this reply.



For the USA, the crisis in Syria exposes the weakest position that the USA has been in the region since George H Bush ousted Iraq from Kuwait. All the gains that the President of Charm, Bill Clinton, made in the 1990s were trashed by George W Bush. Had Barack Obama from the outset played tough with Israel, he might have been able to persuade the Arabs that the bias in favour of Israel which began under LBJ is subject to review. However, Obama’s advisers, particularly Rahm Emmanuel and Dennis Ross, tended to suggest the gradualist soft-shoe shuffle as an operational tactic, except that Netanyahu doesn’t dance, just encourages settlers to break the law and treats the President of the USA with contempt. It is important because right now the USA has little or no leverage in the region outside its long-established relations with Saudi Arabia and Jordan (I am assuming King Abdullah gets the monthly thank-you cheques his dad used to rely on. In return, Hussein gave the US raw intelligence on other Arab leaders). Maintaining regional order is the USA’s priority at a time when Israel is threatening to attack Iran. However, there may be some backroom diplomacy going on in which the USA is offering moral support to the opposition in Syria, and, in the long term, vague guarantees about protecting a fledgling democracy in Syria, possibly using Qatar as a conduit for these messages.



This is pure folly. You're one of those arm chair intellectuals who sits behind his keyboard with too much time on his hands and oozes out your pabulum. I think you like to hear yourself talk. Your anti Semitism comes through like a bright light in this, and most of your other overly verbose posts. So it was the Jews in the administration that strong armed Obama into his permissive tact towards Israel? That my friend in pure unadulterated anti Semitism...and what does it say about Obama that he can be led around by the nose by his Jews? You're hopeless foolish and naive if you think any living man can "persuade" the Arabs anything. You must have been dozing for the first year of the Obama Administration where he traveled the Muslim world often, flashed his Muslim family credentials, and played nice with every Muslim country....even was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his apologies.....and to what end?
You would have us believe that Netanyahu's disdain form Obama is simply unwarranted. As if he fabricated it without cause....Doesn't this Jew realize what we've done for him? lol
As far as your "charmer", Bill Clinton, he forfeited the gains he achieved in his first term with the attack on Iraq, and the Lewinski affair in his second. You may or may not recall Madeline Albright didn't even visit the region for nearly a year as Clinton was distracted at home. Is that Netanyahu's fault as well? To develop a peace process you need honest brokers. Arafat could never be put in that category, and BiBi knew it. Additionally it was Arafat who walked away from the Camp David deal, and it was Clinton who clearly blamed him for the impasse. You seem to have short term memory loss when it pertains to certain facts. Arafat once said to Clinton..."You are a great man" Clinton is said to have responded..."I am not a great man, I am a failure, and you made it so" . Better go back and hit the history books. Your version is sorely lacking perspective.

[trish]

On with the ad hominem attacks! CHARGE!

[Dino Velvet]

Trish, any opinion on the Syrian situation? I'd like your opinion too.

[trish]

Trish, any opinion on the Syrian situation? I'd like your opinion too.

None I'm willing to defend or worth repeating. I certainly don't want to see any more U.S. troops lose their lives in the Middle East or anybody else's troops. But I certainly detest seeing Syrian civilians being killed and trammeled by an inhuman dictator. Finally, I'm certainly glad I don't number among those to whom people are turning to for a solution.

[Dino Velvet]

None I'm willing to defend or worth repeating.

That's your right. I respect that. I wanted to see how much agreement is on all sides. I don't want our military in there either even though I do not like what is going on there.

[onmyknees]

On with the ad hominem attacks! CHARGE!

Well if I don't tell him how lacking his post was....who will? You? Please. This type of bilge is passed off every day by liberal academics sympathetic to the Palestinians. .

His post reeked of anti Semitism. He had to be dealt with. I didn't see anything ad hominem about it...You're over reacting ...again.

[Stavros]

[quote=onmyknees;1093443]

This is pure folly. You're one of those arm chair intellectuals who sits behind his keyboard with too much time on his hands and oozes out your pabulum. I think you like to hear yourself talk. Your anti Semitism comes through like a bright light in this, and most of your other overly verbose posts. So it was the Jews in the administration that strong armed Obama into his permissive tact towards Israel? That my friend in pure unadulterated anti Semitism...and what does it say about Obama that he can be led around by the nose by his Jews? You're hopeless foolish and naive if you think any living man can "persuade" the Arabs anything. You must have been dozing for the first year of the Obama Administration where he traveled the Muslim world often, flashed his Muslim family credentials, and played nice with every Muslim country....even was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his apologies.....and to what end?
You would have us believe that Netanyahu's disdain form Obama is simply unwarranted. As if he fabricated it without cause....Doesn't this Jew realize what we've done for him? lol
As far as your "charmer", Bill Clinton, he forfeited the gains he achieved in his first term with the attack on Iraq, and the Lewinski affair in his second. You may or may not recall Madeline Albright didn't even visit the region for nearly a year as Clinton was distracted at home. Is that Netanyahu's fault as well? To develop a peace process you need honest brokers. Arafat could never be put in that category, and BiBi knew it. Additionally it was Arafat who walked away from the Camp David deal, and it was Clinton who clearly blamed him for the impasse. You seem to have short term memory loss when it pertains to certain facts. Arafat once said to Clinton..."You are a great man" Clinton is said to have responded..."I am not a great man, I am a failure, and you made it so" . Better go back and hit the history books. Your version is sorely lacking perspective.

I am not anti-semitic. There is a difference between being a critic of Israel and its politicians, and hating Jews. I have already defended the Jews from the preposterous argument that they are behind the problems of the world, that our world is run by Jewish bankers and all that crap-you can read it here:
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=63803

There is a large body of literature on the US-Israel relationship which tries to explain the different reasons why the US since the 1960s has shown a bias to this state, in spite of Israel's attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 -sometimes it was for strategic reasons, in more recent times it has been partly pressure from Israel and its silly claim to be the 'only democracy' in the Middle East sharing the values of the USA (which simply isn't true), and partly the support for Israel that comes from Christian fundamentalists who believe the Second Coming will take place in the same place where Jesus last appeared, but who then believe the Jews must convert or be consigned to hell -not exactly a pro-Jewish stance.

Your own understanding of the history of your own times is shaped by your loathing of Democrats and the recorded fact that the only two Presidents to have brokered a peace between Israel and the Arabs since 1948 were Democrats. What have the Republicans achieved?

Clinton alienated a lot of the same people he might have won over in the first half of the 90s with the imposition of sanctions on Iraq, I didn't actually say Clinton was a runaway success, charm goes a long way but not far enough. But Arafat did sign a peace treaty, when Yitzhak Rabin was the democratically elected leader of Israel. Netanyahu and his boss, Ariel Sharon, were in opposition and opposed this historic deal from the start. At Camp David in 2000, it was the democratically elected Ehud Barak along with Arafat who failed to find the formula to conclude the process that had begun in 1993. Arafat was offered something he could not accept, it is as simple as that.

Netanyahu was not part of the process, he never wanted to be. His entire political lineage from Jabotinsky and Stern to the present day has been shaped by a belief that there is nothing to negotiate.

Every year Netanyahu celebrates the terrorist attack on the King David Hotel in 1946, a bombing that killed 91 people -including Jews- and injured 45, a bombing carried out by the Irgun and condemned by the Jewish Agency -this outrageous annual celebration of terror speaks volumes for the divisions in Israel as much as the loathsome politics of Netanyahu -but the truth is Israelis are more bitterly critical of him than even I am, but then I suppose to you they must be 'self-hating Jews' -for what? Not wanting to see their country dragged into the gutter by this man or his foul-mouthed buddy Avigdor Liberman?

If there is to be a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians, both sides have to offer concessions -in the past it was the USA that acted as an honest broker, and delivered. However imperfect the details have been, the mere fact that it happened is something for which, as an American, you should be proud.

Ironically, it is true, I am an armchair intellectual, as I am now semi-retired but still willing to produce if asked. The difference between the two of us is that I have connections to Palestine and Syria that you do not not, but forgive me if I dont think my family history should be aired for your entertainment. In addition, I have lived on the West Bank, not you; I have researched and published on the region, not you. That doesn't mean I am right, my posts here are my interpretations, complete with errors of fact, twisted logic, or whatever other failings you can attribute to me.

On my last trip to the Israel State Archive in Jerusalem, I stayed in Arab East Jerusalem where I had once lived -and loved- before. I walked through the Jaffa Gate in the opposite direction Allenby took when claiming victory in November 1917. I turned right on my way into Jewish West Jerusalem for a coffee in one of the pavement cafes they have there. On the way I passed a fast food joint: McDavid. You need to go to Israel/Palestine and see the misery of the occupation, listen to the violent, hysterical garbage of religious extremists on all sides; and then experience the humour and the love of life that Israelis and Palestinians express in their music, their poetry, their food, and make a choice, just as the people who live there must choose.

And realise that amidst all this humiliation and pain, people fall in love and get married; protest at the price of housing; watch American movies and American tv; and Arab boys furtively search for sex with Jewish boys (well, anyone will do) in the parks at night; and crack jokes; and you can get a Kosher burger that is even cheaper than McDonalds.

Against all the odds, you end up being an optimist; because the alternative is despair, and that is the road to nowhere littered with dead and mutilated bodies where nothing is achieved, and we are all better than that, and capable of better things.

[trish]

OMK, your post is a paradigm example of pure pablum oozed from the pours of an armchair layabout. And please don't insult our intelligence by conflating that statement of pure fact with ad hominem argumentation.

[hippifried]

god you really are fucking dumb hippy,my mates have to leave because they force them out .Once a one of their fucking temples go's up that's it=they force you out.they don't want infidels living next to their temples to allah.gee information does not get into that thick fucking head of yours,they will never settle in my area because a lot of houses are owned by jews

So now you're hiding behind Jews? What makes you think they'd have a problem with Muslims in the neighborhood? Got any more lame stereotypes to toss around? Might as well get them all out. The only "information" you've managed to impart is that you're a punk. Apparently, so are your "mates", who are such pussies that they'd rather pack up & run away than take a chance on catching Muslim cooties or some such horseshit. I've heard all the lame excuses for white flight for the last half century. Forced out? Bullshit! It always comes down to the runners being a bunch of pathelogical wimps who are too stupid to know that they don't know shit.